I Am A Murderer

I have killed. I have these blights on my soul, things that give me nightmares and never let me rest. I don’t know if confessing will help but I’m hoping they will. I need to sleep at night. These aren’t my only crimes but they are the ones that claw at me in the night, dragging me deeper into my own personal hell. Please forgive me.

1. I used to play Rollercoaster Tycoon. One Sunday I made this ride that had people going round a big water slide in little dinghies. Anyway, I opened the ride and clicked on my first customer. It brought up a little box which contained his smiley face and some of his recent thoughts (he was having a great day; he’d just been on the dodgems and eaten an ice cream). I watched as he was winched up to the top of the initial drop, something which would power his journey round the twisty route of the ride.
But something went wrong. I hadn’t tested the ride properly and when that little guy reached the bottom of the drop he was going so fast that he overshot the turn and landed in the trees 50ft below. His little smiling face vanished. He was dead.
I received notice of his death and a fine. It hit the park hard and we lost some customers. But that didn’t affect me as much as the death I’d caused of this innocent. This man had been out on a great day and his life had been snuffed out in an instant. It was my fault. I still see his smiling face in my dreams at night.
I played Theme Morgue later on and had the unenviable task of having to witness this man’s wife and child identify him. It was a horrible thing to go through but I had to do it. The very least I could do was make sure that the identification of his body went as smoothly as possible.
I still occasionally send his wife cash in the post. Anonymous of course and I know I’ll never pay off the guilt. I just need to try.

2. When I was about 13/14 my friend Jay and I would play Bloodbowl. Is that one word or two? Anyway, we’d occasionally let his younger brother play. He was very excited and created his own team, with a star guy and everything. He loved that star man, working out a back-story for him and drawing pictures of his hero.
In his first game I killed him.
I went out of my way to kill him, relentlessly pounding him into the ground until he died. Jay then told his brother that we’d ripped the corpse apart, until his brother burst out crying and left the room.
We laughed like the monsters we were. Served him right though for constantly grassing us up.

3. I stole a bus in San Andreas. The passengers screamed as I drove around smashing into things. Their screams annoyed me. I drove it into a dock to stop their noise. They drowned. I escaped.
I killed many on the streets of San Andreas, often repeatedly booting the bodies long after the life had drained out of them.

4. I once pretended that Maurice Gibb was dead. He died. I’m sorry Maurice.

There are more but I can’t go on right now. It’s just too much.

Nick Nick

I watched Channel 4’s ‘100 Greatest Stand-Up Comedians Of All Time’ last night. I didn’t mean to, but I’d developed Bell’s Palsy and found that I couldn’t change channel using my face controlled remote control. It’s my own fault, I should use a hand-based remote like everyone else, but I had become enchanted by this remote control that looked like a harmonica and changed channels based on the sound you blew through it.

Anyway, I disagreed with their list. I was bound to though wasn’t I? I’m not sure who voted for it, was it the general public, a bunch of comedians or just some random C4 people?
But, it made me think of something in between dribbling Budvar into my paralysed mouth. I started to envisage what conversation would take place at work today if any of them had been watching it (luckily I don’t think any of them did). Also, I’ve heard the same argument used by comedians in the past.
The argument is that Bernard Manning (and cunts such as Jim Davidson) can be excused of their foul opinions because they’re “funny”. Someone actually called him a genius on the TV last night, and I’ve heard people defend him in the past, on the sole basis that he is quick-witted and that people laugh at him. So what?
The argument goes that he is funny therefore we should let him off. Also, people defend him that “he doesn’t really mean it” or that he is abusive to everyone. As Dave Gorman pointed out, no he isn’t. He never mocks his audience of white, ignorant fuckwits. He ridicules minorities, and every one of them. He also lacks any self-deprecation, constantly banging on about how much money he has and about how he’s the greatest thing ever.
When I’ve discussed this before with people who’ve defended him, they’ve also used a second defence of saying that you don’t have to like the person to appreciate their work. And whereas this is largely true for musicians and artists (although I personally can’t stop myself downgrading someone’s work if I think they may be a bit of a twat), you can’t do this for comedy like his. His act IS him. A painting or song quite often will have nothing to do with its creator’s personality; Manning’s act is a reflection of who he is.
But, I wonder, what is the difference between Manning and someone like Jerry Sadowitz? Sadowitz will happily slaughter any person or minority group, sometimes making jokes so appallingly wrong that the only difference from Manning is that Sadowitz’s audience is knowing, realising that what he is saying is wrong, but laughing anyway. It’s the same defence we use with our friends, where we can say the most horrendous things we can think of knowing that our friends realise that we don’t mean it.
But, the main difference with someone like Sadowitz is that his isn’t the comedy of condescension. Yeah, Sadowitz seems to hate everyone, but the person he seems to hate most is himself. Manning is telling his audience that they are better than women, black people, gay people and lefties, Sadowitz is telling us that we are all scum. Especially Jerry Sadowitz.
It’s probably impossible to pick his act apart accurately, but you get the feeling that his comedy isn’t driven from hate for humanity, more from disappointment in the fact that we’re fucking useless.
It was odd really that I’d spent some of Sunday morning looking up some of his work on the internet. It’s worth checking out, some of it I’d forgotten about. There are some really funny / horrendous bits out there.

Btw, I think it was worth watching the programme as a reminder that I must kick Jim Davidson in the face if I ever have the misfortune to meet him.